[flar]

If Ontario shuts down its coal fired generating stations, we will not have enough capacity to power the province. We will then buy power from the US, where there are hundreds of coal fired plants and they are building more all the time. So we end up paying extra, and we get the pollution anyway. And the American plants will cause more pollution. To give an example, Lambton Generating Station, located along the St. Clair River south of Sarnia, just spent millions to install scrubbers that eliminate virtually all of the toxins from coal smoke. Most of what you see coming from the stacks is steam. Directly across the river in Michigan there are two huge coal fired plants belching smoke into the prevailing west winds. That's where we'll be buying our power when they shut Lambton Generating Station down in a few years. Lambton could also be outfitted with clean coal technology. Another benefit of coal is that it is an on-demand source of power. When demand is high, shovel on more coal; when demand is low, it can be turned off completely. That is not the case with other forms of power generation, and electricity cannot be stored efficiently and thus goes to waste with other nonflexible power generation sources.